the Price for Paradise

Paradise met the slum for us on the beautiful Perhentian Islands, Malaysia. The same island where I wrote about swimming with exotic sea creatures in the clearest of waters, well visiting PARADISE comes at price for everyone, and the price for us = living in a shed. In fact, I don’t even know if you could call it a shed. I mean my dad has a shed at home and it is a mansion compared to this crap hole. 4 days we called this terrible place ‘home’. No windows, unless you count the cracks between the wall boards. The door didn’t shut, I had to hold it up and push right to wedge it semi-shut, 2 single beds pushed together under a holy mosquito net. No sheet. Lucky for us, it also happened to be a mosquito nesting village, so I made a force field of burning coils around the bed. Even if it meant we had headaches from breathing in too much insect burning repellent. Somehow we managed to have a fan, but we only had electricity for it 7pm-7am. After 7am just sweat in the humidity and make a run for the beach in the unbearable heat. No lights, we had to buy candles. & a bathroom? What else would go with a shed, other than a barn for a shower and toilet? No joke, a barn. 8 stalls for us ‘animals’ to scrounge in and try to wash up. Fitting myself, plus the frogs, mosquitoes, & geckos in the shower was a struggle, we had a freaking ecosystem in a 6×6 foot cement box. No exaggeration.

But, I can deal with the shed & barn as long as I can keep living in this Utopian land a little longer.